IntrudersReview

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Clive Owen stars in this horror film from the director of 28 Weeks Later.

By Chris Tilly

Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was two-for-two with his debut features; Intacto an intelligent examination of fate, and 28 Weeks Later an enjoyably entertaining horror sequel that was much better than it had any right to be.

Unfortunately his third effort - Intruders - is the first misstep in the filmmaker's fledgling career, the project full of ambition but seriously lacking in either drama or scares.

The story is a simple one which is made confusing by an over-complicated structure that cuts between two complementary plotlines on an all-too-regular basis. The prologue is a belter however, kicking off in Spain with youngster Juan telling his mother a scary story about a boy trapped in a monster's belly.

Clive Owen as John Farrow in Intruders.

Juan then goes to bed, though later that night he ventures onto his rain-swept balcony to retrieve his beloved cat, only to be attacked by a horrifying, faceless ghoul. Juan then wakes up terrified, leaving the audience unsure as to whether the incident was real, or simply the result of an over-active imagination.

Cut to the UK and we are introduced to construction engineer John Farrow (Clive Owen), his wife Sue (Carice Van Houten) and their daughter Mia (Ella Purnell). The latter stumbles across a story - written on a piece of paper concealed in a tree - which tells the tale of Hollow Face, a hooded phantom who endeavours to remove children's faces to wear as his own.

Mia soon starts to have ghostly visions similar to Juan's, with the remainder of the film switching between these two corresponding stories, Juan putting pen to paper to document his terrifying fears; Mia's obsession with the story threatening to tear her family apart.

This enables writers Nicolas Casariego and Jaime Marques to make interesting observations about how different cultures deal with fear and pain, the Spanish family turning to the church in the shape of an attempted exorcism; the British relying on medical science by calling on the services of a psychiatrist. Both plot strains fail to amount to anything of any interest however.

Ella Purnell plays Owen's terrified daughter, Mia.

Moreover, the parallel storylines actually result in long periods of boredom, as what happens in Spain is loosely duplicated in England and vice-versa. Proceedings threaten to become interesting when the close bond between John and Mia results in their sharing the same Hollow Face vision, but this potentially intriguing sub-plot about the bond between parent and child sadly leads down yet another narrative dead end.

Indeed, the film asks compelling questions regarding how far one would go to protect a child, and whether or not fear can be hereditary, but fails to ever really answer them, the closing scenes instead powered by a gimmicky plot twist that those paying attention should have figured during the first few reels.

Owen struggles in the role of an ordinary man thrown into seemingly extraordinary circumstances, delivering a flat performance early on in proceedings, and failing to nail the big moments during the film's finale. Van Houten also seems to be sleep-walking through the movie as the distressed mother trying to deal with the breakdown of both husband and child, though admittedly her role is horribly underdeveloped.

Intruders is also hampered by a ridiculous looking villain, Hollow Face an unconvincing CGI creation who does little more than hover in a vaguely menacing fashion. Which is a shame as the rest of the film looks great, Fresnadillo playing with light and dark and cranking up the atmosphere as he endeavours to examine what lies beyond the shadows.

But for a film so concerned with fear, the film lacks any real frights, that opening sequence the only real slice of effective horror; the remainder consistently underwhelming.

Which leaves Intruders in a strange no-man's-land somewhere between simple creature feature and thought-provoking psychological drama. The result is an ambiguous mess of a movie that will leave you scratching your head and, more frustratingly, feeling like you've wasted 90 minutes of your life on a wild ghost chase.